Dr Mark Humphries

Summary

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Research interests

Our research focuses on the fundamental principles of computation in neural circuits. At one level, we study complete neural circuits, seeking to understand how groups of neurons encode algorithms, and compute with them. At a lower level, we build detailed models of brain regions to study the dynamical repertoire of neural microcircuits, seeking clues for how different brain regions may be representing and computing information. Tying both together is the need to decode the information contained in experimentally-recorded neural activity. We are developing analysis methods that are able to take the recordings of simultaneous brain cell actvity and automatically solve basic problems in understanding these recordings: finding when the cells are active together, which groups they belong to, and what form that co-ordinated activity takes. We are applying these methods to problem areas in computation across neuroscience: the development and function of the striatum; how re-organisation of forebrain population activity underpins learning and decision-making; how sensory information is coded by neuron populations; and the neural control of locomotion